Bergen County student leaves college to pursue Thiel fellowship

Peter Thiel, chairman of Clarium Capital Management LLC, listens during a television interview in New York, U.S., on Friday, Sept. 24, 2010. Thiel, a founding investor in PayPal Inc. and Facebook Inc., is the founder of a fellowship that gives students money to leave school and pursue their ideas. Photographer: Jin Lee/Bloomberg ***Local Caption*** Peter Thiel WireSelects: 09/24/10
(Jin Lee)

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS — Alex Koren wants to create a global supercomputer that would use the processing space on cellphones to help people with data analysis and research.

But college has been in the way of that goal.

Alex Koren of Englewood Cliffs has left college to pursue a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship.Erin Ashford Photography/The Thiel Foundation

As a sophomore at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, Koren said he was too busy working in the admissions office and serving as class president to bring his ideas to life. So he stepped down as class president and left his job.

But college was still in the way. So Koren has dropped out of school.

In May, the 20-year-old Englewood Cliffs resident was named one of the winners of the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship, a controversial program that pays students $100,000 over two years to leave school and pursue their ideas. The program was founded by billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who was one of the early investors in Facebook.

"It was one of the greatest days of my life," Koren said about hearing he was selected for the program. "I sat in my room thinking about all of the changes that were going to happen to my life."

The Thiel Fellowship was created in 2010 to encourage young people to devote all of their time to pursuing innovative ideas. But the concept has enraged some higher education officials, who say Thiel is sending the wrong message by encouraging students to drop out of college.

Last year, former Harvard University President Larry Summers made headlines when he bashed Thiel's program.

"I think the single most misdirected bit of philanthropy in this decade is Peter Thiel's special program to bribe people to drop out of college," Summers said.

Danielle Strachman, a program director for the Thiel Fellowship, said the program isn't "anti-college," but is another outlet for students to explore their futures without worrying about debt. She also said fellows always have the option to return to school.

Koren said he is ready to make the most of his $100,000 fellowship.

At Johns Hopkins, Koren had been working on a company called Hyv, which he started with his friend Sheldon Trotman, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their supercomputer idea started when they won a 2013 hack-a-thon while interning at Intel last summer.

Now, Koren's idea keeps developing and changing with support from the Thiel Fellowship.

Koren moved to San Francisco on June 3 for a three-day orientation with the fellowship and soon learned that the hardware he would need to support his system was not available.

"The expectations we had were just too high," Koren said. "That's okay. That's why we're at the fellowship."

Now Koren wants to help developers make money with their smartphone applications from sources other than advertising. His first idea is to create a news ticker that app developers can put on their apps to be altered to fit different formats and designs.

His idea is that news sources would pay to have their content distributed through the tickers, which would increase traffic on their websites.

Koren believes the idea will create a more "progressive ecosystem" for app users.

He said he thinks advertisements on smartphone apps are often "out-of-context" and feed too much into consumerism. A news ticker, he said, would make people more knowledgeable through their apps.

Strachman said Koren's vision and character stood out in a group of more than 500 applicants for the fellowship.

"The biggest thing that we look for are people who can hold a big mission on how they want the world or an industry to make a change," Strachman said. "We really liked his vision for the project."

She also said that Koren showed he could collaborate well with peers and give and receive feedback in the finalists rounds.

"I love that Alex is actually very humble," Strachman said. "He didn't really think he was going to make it past the first round."

Koren's decision to be a fellow hasn't been easy. He said he will miss his college friends and many other aspects of campus life. He declined to talk about his family's role in his decision but said they were "very proud and supportive" when he left to pursue the fellowship.

Latarsha Gatlin, a Johns Hopkins spokeswoman, said in a statement, "This is very exciting for Alex, and we all wish him the very best of success with his project."

Currently, Koren shares a house with 10 other Thiel fellows in San Francisco. He doesn't have an office; he moves from coffeehouse to coffeehouse using Wi-Fi to research and develop his ideas.

And, he said, he is "very happy" with his decision.

"It's really inspirational being around these fellows who have these amazing and different ideas," Koren said. "It's awesome to come home these days to hear about all of the stuff they've done."